Look i get what the article was saying. That  the risk bioware is taking doing a voiced quest thing and with the money they are putting into this. If it fails in the future devs may be less inclined to spend loads of money on a new themepark mmo.

I understand this. I also understand that if it succeeds u are gonna see alot of people using popular ips  as themparks.

I find that most of the posts i make is defending tor . I know tor isnt gonna be star wars galaxies or tie fighter vs xwing space in it. I  know this it doesnt bother me.

I know what tor is bringing to the table and cant wait to try it. Almsot everyone who has played this games hand s on has raved about it. I dont understand how getting to max level will kill this game.

They intend to have all the stuff every themepark mmo has for end game. Pvp raids, heroics, Which i do in wow not for gear but cause i love to see the content. And with multiplayer talk and bioware story added to those i cant wait to see hwo it all plays out.

Keep in mind your class story can change based on your choices. This to me seems so cool I know i am a fanboi but its cause the game just sounds like my cup of tea.

It may not be yours fine. Dont need to rip it for no reason using lies and innuendo and stuff thats been debunked for months now.

I fully expect this game to succeed. I think a story driven mmo with voice and stuff will be cool . Its not the most innovative but may be just the next step in evoloution of mmos.

I wish gw 2 all the luck in the world but i wish some of them woudl stop ripping tor and comparing it to gw 2 all the time. I just do. I dont knwo i guess the fact ive always wanted to play a jedi or sith  just makes my day. Plus i love wow. so a wow clone doesnt make me flinch or run. Plus i wanna play all 8 classes.

Can people stop saying sandbox

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Originally posted by Arentas

The only problem with sandbox games is that they aren't developed with AAA budgets.  If anything, sandbox games are far more fun to just start out in because they are ripe with untapped opportunity.  

If, for instance, Blizzard developed a sandbox game and dumped hundred million into it, then that game would be extremely successful regardless of the fact that its a sandbox.  It's all about the money Lebowski.

The only reason themepark titles are prevalent is because Blizzard created a highly polished, quality, theme-park MMO... and because everyone is trying to copy it.

It's all about the quality of the product, not whether its a themepark or a sandbox.  And quality usually requires a lot of money.   

Eve is successful... not because its some sort of crazy anomaly amongst sandbox MMOs, but because its a polished, deep, well thought out, well designed game.

 

Games like Darkfall,  Mortal Online, etc are not doing exceptionally well because they are low budget products with lots of design flaws.  That's all there is to it.

Read this, and read it again Jon Wood. Read it it so much that it shows up in your dreams at night. This is the reason why there aren't any QUALITY sandbox games about or in production these days. If a company sank $100 million into a sandbox effort and polished it to the "d" as Trion did with Rift, you'd have a game that would do just as well or better than 95% of the "efforts" being made today.

But, neither you nor anyone on this site can name a sandbox MMO that has seen HALF of that investment amount put into it and worked on by a veteran team after 2004. Sure, we've seen half-baked attempts by a few companies whose only reason for making a sanbox attempt was that none of the big, budget capable AAA companies is doing it.

It's not as though I'm ignorant of the argument. It's just way too simplistic an argument to make. Of course the games would be better if they were better funded.

Here's the tough reality though:

No one is going to put that much money into developing a sandbox when sandboxes have, on the whole, been unsuccessful and not supported even by the players who claim to want them. We can flail our arms and jump up and down all we want and say we want it, but the fact and the statistics (which are what game companies actually pay attention to).

The article makes two very specific points:

First: No major investment is going to be made into a sandbox MMO unless the folks with the cash see that people will actually play them. and support them.

Second: Sandboxes, by their nautre, have to start small in order to properly grow to fit their audience. They can't just "spring forth" completely "finished".

The vicious circle is that any studio looking to make a sandbox, because they aren't going to have the large investment that comes with a theme park, is going to be forced to have a smaller development team and a shorter development cycle. It's simple business. As a result, the games that they're working on are smaller in scope and generally more buggy. In turn, players won't support it and the cycle begins again.

Look, you can hate on me all you want for saying it, but that doesn't make it any less true. It's not like Activision or EA is suddenly going to wake up one morning and go: Let's dump a bunch of money into a huge risk. That's not how ig companies with a lot of money work.

I want a good sandbox as much as anybody. It's what attracted me to MMOs in the first place. That said, I don't have blinders on as to hw the industry works and moves. Sometimes the truth sucks.

Your points were no more complex than mine. Let's not try to come off as holier than thou here, ok. I understand you have to write for this site and generate hits for your article, but lets deviate from trying to pass off that you write from a more "evolved" and "enlightened" position than I.

That said, what I find incredulous is that you and your peers continue those sophist ways when it comes to this topic and over emphasizing the importance of players not playing these so called sandbox games that are driving modern companies/investors away from making them. In reality, since 2004 only THREE games have been attempted that come more than 50% toward that sandbox line: Ryzom, Darkfall and Mortal. As I said before, name all these other "sandbox" games that players aren't supporting. I challenge you and genuinely would be surprised if you can produce a credible list. Oh, Fallen Earth doesn't make the cut (the only thing semi-sandbox about it is the crafting system...oh, and all the sand). Earthrise is a recent launch but again it falls into that category of not enough funding to make it a decent game from the start.

Oh, and sorry, bollocks, sandbox games DO NOT have to start small. Audience large or small, the game will still grow based on how the players act in the world. That and no MMO launches "finished". They all add content, new features, etc to them over their life. This start small stuff is but a short-sighted jab at trying to find an argue point.

Before the all too easy dig at me that I will discredit your list that hasn't materilized so far, it'd make no sense for me to do so as 1) this is an internet debate and I don't know you so what tangible am I gaining in proving you wrong (the truth being stated is my only prize), and 2) if you somehow do produce a list of games I hadn't heard of (which probably isn't going to happen) and one is indeed sandbox and has modern production values I'll be both amazed and starting a  new subscription.

Oh, and just to counter, both UO and SWG did quite well when looking at their respective time periods in the history of MMO gaming. To say otherwise is a blatant falsehood. Indeed, the success that EvE online has and the accolades the game has garnered is MORE than enough data to lay infront of investors to show that sandboxes of the more than 50% variety do work and are profitable.

And for the record there is no hate on my part toward you. Never has been. I just have met my limit of the sophism that is in the genre's media when it comes to the lack of quality sandbox games versus themepark games. The bottom line is noone is spending the money to make a serious effort at them because it's easier to just pump out more of the same. Once a sandbox game has been made with a budget equivalent to these AAA themeparks rolling out and that sandbox game fails to do as well as all of these themeparks, then I'll concede your "the players aren't supporting them" arguement.

Originally posted by Holice

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

What Yamota said. This article is just troll-bait.

 

It simply ignores highly successfull games with sandbox elements like Minecraft or Farmville. It also ignores that right next to SWTOR, there is GW2 mixing Themepark and Sandbox elements, getting both hardcore and casual gamers excited. Undead Lab's zombie mmo is even more sandboxy, and it's published by Microsoft.

 

So, why are these devs and publishers going that route, even though us evil, evil players  don't support bad sandboxes enough? Well, maybe they know how to get it right, and actually have the guts to just do it.

You can not put Minecraft and farmville in the same genre as these MMO's. Zynga is not successful based solely on Farmville, they have quite a few products out there, and found a niche in pay to play games on mobile devices and easy to use games on Facebook. Now think about all the people out there with both cell phones and internet connections. I think that far exceeds the people with gaming rigs, and then those interested in MMO's.

And as far as Minecraft, there will not be any other duplication of this any time soon. Minecraft benefited from being able to play it at work, on avg pc's, with no true rush on time to advance in game. You honestly think that a fantasy mmo would work if you only played it 20 minutes here and 20 minutes there? You wouldn't get very far into the game, but Minecraft had the luxury of not needing to go anywhere and still be everywhere.

 

The OP makes very great points, that I have even stressed in the past. People claim they want something different from the typical MMO's out there, that they want it sandbox, and harder, etc. But yet games like Earthrise, Fallen Earth, Mortal Online, Champions Online, Warhammer, who all try and improve on the genre, try to take the next step, always wind up falling backwards because the community has no patience.

Everyone seems to want the polish and smoothness of WoW in a brand new, never before seen game.  Undead Lab's may very well be sticking to their guns, but if players leave due to bugs and lag and server stability, then it doesn't matter how good the game may be in 2 years, if no one is around to fund them until that point.

People should not support games that have lots of bugs and unstable servers, anything less would make such elements acceptable, which they are not and should never be.

As for the list of games you mentioned:

• Mortal Online - a joke made by UT modders. It is terribly coded and now, over 6 months after release they struggle to keep the servers up for longer than 24 hours.
• Earthrise - Underfunded with lots of bugs and almost nothing to do. Sandbox does not mean there should be nothing to do but rather tools for the players to make their own content.
• Fallen Earth - Underfunded with terrible combat and animations in a weird mix of themepark and sandbox which does not work very well.
• Champions Online/Warhammer - Is this a joke? These are 100% themepark games, why are they even mentioned in the context of sandbox games?

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

 

 

Oh, and just to counter, both UO and SWG did quite well when looking at their respective time periods in the history of MMO gaming. To say otherwise is a blatant falsehood. Indeed, the success that EvE online has and the accolades the game has garnered is MORE than enough data to lay infront of investors to show that sandboxes of the more than 50% variety do work and are profitable.

Asherons Call was also a decent success and is still live and kicking.

No the reason for lack of sandbox is not because of their lack of success but rather their lack of success relative to WoW. Investors are staring themselves blind at WoWs subscription numbers and will fund only WoW clones and nothing else.

Finally lets compare the list of triple A themeparks compared to triple A sandbox in the last few years.

• WAR (huge IP which completely failed to live up to expectations)
• AoC (huge IP which completely failed to live up to expectations)
• DCU (new but dropping like a rock in sub numbers, will probably go F2P soon)
• Champions Online (went F2P to save itself from shut down)
• STO (will go F2P soon to save itself from shut down)
• Dungeon And Dragons (went F2P to save itself from shut down)

Originally posted by AndrosTRB

The game will be a failure if they expect to get their money back AND have a dedicated community. There is no place for 'cinematic gameplay' in mmos, mainly because they try to offer each player the illusion that they are the protagonist in an expanding world. This is impossible to achieve in a massive multiplayer driven game. 'Cinematic'  is not the thing mmos should evolve into.

I agree with you. I was soooo hyped about this game until I read about the amount of voiceover (I can't imagine a neverending Tortage), the lackluster space content, and the cinematic gameplay. I now have zero interest in this game.

Originally posted by Yamota

People should not support games that have lots of bugs and unstable servers, anything less would make such elements acceptable, which they are not and should never be.

The point is, that no matter what type of game you develop it has to hold some minimum standard when it comes to visuals, bugs, server stability, content etc. Just because you label the game as sandbox does not make us gamers flood to their servers and it is stupid to expect us to and blame us for the quality of sandbox games released. 

 

Your entire notion that us customers should fund developers who release unfinished game is exactly why this kind of behavior, of unfinished games are being released, happens. So a tip for you, investors fund games and then expect a return of their investments, customers buy games which they enjoy because they will get zero investment back.

I agree but up to a point.

SWG was bugged and had huge flaws, still people played it. In fact, a lot of the MMORPG's from before 2004 launched with nowhere near the amount of polish or high production value of content that later MMO's did. Still, they did alright as MMO's., MMO gamers looked beyond that.

Good, different MMORPG's that came later were 'punished' and neglected for a lack of polish and lower production value where in MMORPG's before 2004 it was tolerated, in favor of themepark WoW styled MMO's.

That's sending a message. Even more so if the best of sandbox MMO's like SWG can barely scrape up 200-300k subs and losing 10k sub a month where themepark MMO's draw more attention and have higher sub numbers for a longer period of time. Scrape up = relative here, since apparently what was perfectly acceptable and a sign of good business before 2004, has been deemed insanely enough a 'fail' in this post-WoW era. Sheer insanity, but that's how it is these days.

If MMORPG's like Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, APB, Ryzom, Darkfall and Fallen Earth aren't supported by the MMO community as a whole as much as all those AAA themepark MMO's are, then as a group MMO gamers are indeed sending a message.

What it teaches namely is that no matter how good an MMO can be, the MMO playerbase has changed from what it was before WoW in the pioneer years of MMO's, where in those times MMO gamers could accept the lack of polish and unfinished features and look beyond that to what an MMO had to offer to them, in these new times it won't be accepted anymore.

No matter what an MMORPG is, themepark, sandbox, hybrid or something new, it has to launch with a high degree of polish and a full set of interesting or at least the traditionally expected features, or else it will just be scraping by.

That's the lessons learnt of the past 5-6 years, and we as a whole of MMO playerbase made it happen that those were the lessons that could be learnt in that period of time.

What the sandbox genre or in fact the whole MMORPG genre needs is a champion, an MMORPG that isn't heavily WoW-style themepark oriented like all of the giants' releases of the last couple of years, but one with a different focus that shows that themepark style isn't the only way to big success. EVE isn't enough, it's too different in playstyle to have its features and mechanics adopted into a landbased MMORPG. ArcheAge or WoD stand a better chance.

Besides that, I think that GW2, TSW and Firefall also have potential to show that different gameplay mechanics apart from themepark mechanics can work well to be successful for an MMORPG.

Originally posted by Yamota

So if you look at the risk here then apparently AAA themeparks seems alot more prone to failure than AAA sandbox games and the only thing which keeps the industry pushing out these lackluster AAA themeparks is the promise of the promised lands of WoW (which will never happen, WoW is a freak incident).

No, what it showed was that they all didn't get it right, there was always missing some key element or more for longterm success. Have no polish or broken features at launch, and you stumble over the first hurdle. Have those right, then you're flying over the first hurdle, but then there's still a number of other hurdles to take to achieve longterm success.

LotrO came a long way, but they made some less successful decisions along the way with as a result that player interest waned over the years.

Originally posted by MMO.Maverick

 

SWG was bugged and had huge flaws, still people played it. In fact, a lot of the MMORPG's from before 2004 launched with nowhere near the amount of polish or high production value of content that later MMO's did. Still, they did alright as MMO's., MMO gamers looked beyond that.

Sure we did but there is a limit. SWG, Asherons Call, UO at launch was far better than Darkfall and Mortal Online were and more importantly, they improved faster. Mortal Online, 6 months down the road, cant even keep their servers up 24 hours before crashing. So they are not comparable.

But with that being said the MMORPG have evolved since then, you cannot expect to release a car with the same features and quality like they did when cars were first invented and then expect the same response from ur customers.

Good, different MMORPG's that came later were 'punished' and neglected for a lack of polish and lower production value where in MMORPG's before 2004 it was tolerated, in favor of themepark WoW styled MMO's.

Like I said, up to a point and the genre has evolved so they have to evolve with it. And I dont understand why you think lack of polish would favor themeparks. Vanguard was mostly a themepark and it was severly punished for its lack of release quality.

That's sending a message. Even more so if the best of sandbox MMO's like SWG can barely scrape up 200-300k subs and losing 10k sub a month where themepark MMO's draw more attention and have higher sub numbers for a longer period of time. Scrape up = relative here, since apparently what was perfectly acceptable and a sign of good business before 2004, has been deemed insanely enough a 'fail' in this post-WoW era. Sheer insanity, but that's how it is these days.

Pre-WoW (what you call before 2004) 300k subs was a good number and again this is not themepark or sandbox related. All MMO subscroiptions numbers that was 200k + at that time were considered good before WoW was released.

And deemed insanely fail is by investors and not by customers. I dont think Darkfall is an insane fail because of its low subscription numbers but because of its lack of quality.

If MMORPG's like Vanguard, Tabula Rasa, APB, Ryzom, Darkfall and Fallen Earth aren't supported by the MMO community as a whole as much as all those AAA themepark MMO's are, then as a group MMO gamers are indeed sending a message.

Tabula Rasa, APB, Fallen Earth are not sandbox games but that is not the point anyway. They were considered crappy games so ofcourse you are not going to support poor games. Sandbox or themepark.

What it teaches namely is that no matter how good an MMO can be, the MMO playerbase has changed from what it was before WoW in the pioneer years of MMO's, where in those times MMO gamers could accept the lack of polish and unfinished features and look beyond that to what an MMO had to offer to them, in these new times it won't be accepted anymore.

Which again is not related to sandbox or themepark but rather a general principle. One for which I think is good.

No matter what an MMORPG is, themepark, sandbox, hybrid or something new, it has to launch with a high degree of polish and a full set of interesting or at least the traditionally expected features, or else it will just be scraping by.

That is only half of the truth. There have been several MMORPGs wich were polished but simply were not good. Innovation is a risky bussiness as it can fails just as it can succeed.  

That's the lessons learnt of the past 5-6 years, and we as a whole of MMO playerbase made it happen that those were the lessons that could be learnt in that period of time.

The other lessons learned, by investors, is that if our game is like WoW then we might get millions of subs. Not a good lesson but still, that is where the investment money seem to be going. Rift being the latest one, SW:TOR the next and so on.

Originally posted by Yamota

So if you look at the risk here then apparently AAA themeparks seems alot more prone to failure than AAA sandbox games and the only thing which keeps the industry pushing out these lackluster AAA themeparks is the promise of the promised lands of WoW (which will never happen, WoW is a freak incident).

No, what it showed was that they all didn't get it right, there was always missing some key element or more for longterm success. Have no polish or broken features at launch, and you stumble over the first hurdle. Have those right, then you're flying over the first hurdle, but then there's still a number of other hurdles to take to achieve longterm success.

No to what? Were they not AAA themepark games? Were they not heavily influenced by WoW? And were they not considered as failures? My point was that this is not a question about us supporting sandbox or not, it is about a game being good and fun or not. If a game is buggy, incomplete, unstable and evolving very slowly then it wont matter the type of the game. Most people wont play for something that is not fun for them and you cant blame the genre or the customers. You can only blame the devs for that.

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Oh, and just to counter, both UO and SWG did quite well when looking at their respective time periods in the history of MMO gaming. To say otherwise is a blatant falsehood. Indeed, the success that EvE online has and the accolades the game has garnered is MORE than enough data to lay infront of investors to show that sandboxes of the more than 50% variety do work and are profitable.

I think UO is the only game that did genuinely well because of its sandbox nature. And while I am not saying that SWG and EVE did not do will, they are different in that:

SWG was a star wars game and benefited extremely from that IP. Basically they took storylines that were already around and intergrated them into their world, and instead of having zones, they had planets. It's just one of those things where its easier to draw from vast resources to make a game, rather than have to develop all the content in house. And SWG did have the themeparks inside it and many, many players ran those. Personally, SWG was fun because instead of going out to kill 10 elves, i got to go out and kill 10 Storm Troopers, and I think that if it was in a generic setting SWG, would not have done as well as it did.

And EVE is a huge exception because its the only decent spaceship MMO. Instead of trying to get a piece of the Fantasy MMO genre, CCP took a step away and went Sci-FI and it paid off huge, as there was no competition, worthy of being competition. Even now, barely any companies are trying to get a piece of their market share, barring maybe JGE and Black Prophecy but they are completely different in nature.

Originally posted by Holice

Originally posted by Khalathwyr

Oh, and just to counter, both UO and SWG did quite well when looking at their respective time periods in the history of MMO gaming. To say otherwise is a blatant falsehood. Indeed, the success that EvE online has and the accolades the game has garnered is MORE than enough data to lay infront of investors to show that sandboxes of the more than 50% variety do work and are profitable.

I think UO is the only game that did genuinely well because of its sandbox nature. And while I am not saying that SWG and EVE did not do will, they are different in that:

Asherons Call did well too... it is still alive to this date.

SWG was a star wars game and benefited extremely from that IP. Basically they took storylines that were already around and intergrated them into their world, and instead of having zones, they had planets. It's just one of those things where its easier to draw from vast resources to make a game, rather than have to develop all the content in house. And SWG did have the themeparks inside it and many, many players ran those. Personally, SWG was fun because instead of going out to kill 10 elves, i got to go out and kill 10 Storm Troopers, and I think that if it was in a generic setting SWG, would not have done as well as it did.

If that is the case then why did it crash when they changed to from 80% sandbox and complext to 80% themepark and simplified?

And EVE is a huge exception because its the only decent spaceship MMO. Instead of trying to get a piece of the Fantasy MMO genre, CCP took a step away and went Sci-FI and it paid off huge, as there was no competition, worthy of being competition. Even now, barely any companies are trying to get a piece of their market share, barring maybe JGE and Black Prophecy but they are completely different in nature.

Ok so you can name another triple A sandbox title that has failed? Because all I see are half-assed indy developed crap which is failing because they are crap and not because they are sandbox.

Originally posted by inBOIL

Originally posted by fcazares

.BioWare is playing it smart, they know what sells and what has worked in the RPG gaming market and they're bringing it with the elemets of MMOs that people expect. In the end it's a package thats going to move and sell millions of boxes on hype alone. They have more than two million people who want to just test the thing. I think they will do fine.

they will sell millions of boxes ,that is a  sure thing,but its not the point in mmo market.

can they keep people paying monthly fees in single-player online game is the point.

in single-player adventures its normal that game has few different endings nowadays.

but in mmos its a bit different thing,atleast i demand unlimited amounts of stories if im going to buy that game every month.

and honestly there isnt many Longest Joyrneys,Larrys or Space Quests on the market and i doubt that this company can deliver such stories every month for years to come.

 

 

 My assumption from this is that you've never played a BioWare game, or at least not one recently. They are very much replayable games and this one is going to be the size of five of them just to start. Each class will have a completely different experience and within them are the choices you make and how they affect the story and yourcharacter. One would be compeltely hard pressed to play out a story exactly the same way in one of their normal RPG's much less a bohemeth like this. Better still you wont be able to save and replay different options and the outcome they create so to find them out you'd have to play again. As i said, this is a very smart company and they have yet to make a failed game. I think they will do fine.

This may sound silly to some, but for me the social experience is the most important part of an mmo. I do not care if its theme park or sandbox, but I do greatly care if it has a friendly community which is why I play EQ2. If you look at a recent article SOE released about EQ players the average age is 38, and it has a whopping 31% women flot which the average mmo only has 10%. When you play in EQ2 you can truly feel the difference from the community. Let a new person in wow try to get help in general chat he would be lucky if someone did not call him names, and run him off. In EQ2 new players all the time ask questions, and not only do ppl not put them down, they often go beyond and help them with what they are doing. A big reason I think EQ2 has this kind of community is three fold. 1. This is obvious the EQ serious has been around a while so ppl had time to grow up. 2. The fact it has a very good working built in guild voice chat, in EQ2 you do things with your guild much more then other games where in my experience in most mmos you might raid with your guild 2-3 nights a week in EQ2 I do something with my guild almost everyday which makes one really get to know ppl, and forum friendships. 3. Is what I feel a Hugh reason for this community is EQ2's wonderful mentor system that makes it so players of all lvls, and gear can grp together and it still gives all some rewards in the forum of AA, Quest, and XP. In EQ2 it is common place have a grp with ppl level 30 and ppl pimped out in gear and level 90. I do think developers could really learn something from SOE on this one on how to build a game with community in mind. They are thinking the same way for the next EQ as well because they already said they are more interested in building in online world, and community other then a mmo game.

Originally posted by drake_hound

Well to Jon Wood , It doesn´t matter , people holding onto there perfect sandbox dreams .

Are very few and too far dispersed . It they manage to create one that shows potential.

Half the sandbox people cry it is not my sandbox .

No investor want to put major money into a development when you don´t know the correct target group . or the money it will refund , sandbox lovers will go the way turnbased games lovers go.

Into oblivion sadly , so I can sympathise with them ,what I am more worried about is streamlining MMO all into a happy farmville/Imbue stale of play .. nothing but a glorified chatbox with minigames .

Thus so far the themepark themself don´t dissapoint , cause they simply offer more option then sandbox , this is one of the grip most people have with themepark .

There options are there but not the optimal options , while in sandbox the freedom is there cause there is nothing really optimal or you are streamlined into thinking a certain pathway.

 

Now to GrumpyMel2 , every company starts out as a indie company , very few explode into Blizzard Bioware Obsidian Square Enix , but if there idea is sound enough , and they are willing to play and reinvest , look at Aerananet .

They won´t have problems finding financiel backers , but don´t expect investor to jump into a idea , that your game will bring in millions with a unproven track record .

That is a load of rubbishe , cause Indie companies are usually less flexible with comprimises, or too flexible thus losing there original idea .

Means they are out of touch with how the market and investor work .

Earth Rise/Masthead is the best example this year , I love the idea but I know not enough people will support it , it is a PVP based sandbox , that had only eye for a small market .

But want big budget income , that will not work . while I love the design or ideology .

CCP has a trackrecored so does City of Heroes , there design team generate something new with correct comprimises . they don´t stick blindly there head in the sand .

And say we won´t alter elements , EvE now is vastly different from EvE launch .

Incorporating a lot of themepark idea,s , to futher there own cause .

Sadly the time of imperfect launches are over , as consumers we will not purchase a expensive incomplete game , and hope that 6 months later it will be fixed .

It simply does not work anymore , so if you launch launch it as complete as possible .

Drakehound,

I'm having a little trouble deciphering the substance of your post but I'll try to respond as best I can. Not sure how much actual experience you have in this area but here is my observation of how things work....

Not ever studio starts out as an "indie", there are plenty of major entertainment corporations that try to diversify into the gaming arena by starting up thier own studios. In general, "indies" or more specificaly, privately held/funded companies are willing to take greater risks. This is because officers of publicaly held corporations have to answer to thier share-holders when investments fall through....and no one wants to be left holding the bag if a high risk investment nose-dives. Privately held/funded companies generaly are alot more flexible about taking risks....since there are a limited number of people you need to get buy in from in when making a decision.

Note that pretty much all investment is a risk/reward matrix. Investments that realize the highest returns are also the ones that tend to involve the greatest risk. You can "play it safe" and realize a decent return....but in general your not going to come anywhere close to the kind of returns that a high risk investment is.... you also don't stand as much chance as loosing everything though. Believe it or not, there are people who specialize in high risk investments....though they tend to be few and far between in this economy.

It's also important to note that while there are plenty of successfull companies who follow "market trends",  most of the ones that have experienced truely stellar growth are the ones who STARTED market trends, not followed them. (i.e. companies that did things that ran COUNTER to conventional "market wisdom"). There are also plenty of companies that flopped horribly doing that..... but the fact that every once in awhile you'll see a surprise runaway hit.... is proof enough that conventional market wisdom is often faulty. We're that not the case, we'd all by typing away on dumb terminals connected to IBM mainframes today and no one would ever have heard of a company called Microsoft.

In terms of "sandbox vs themepark", the conventional wisdom IS that there is very little market for "sandbox" games.... the OP seemed to regurgitate that arguement in part of his article..... and that's the way conventional investment IS running in the MMO industry today. My counter was that while that may be the "conventional wisdom" in the MMO market today.... that assumption is actualy based on very FLIMSY evidence. What we've seen is that pretty much all the "sandbox" style titles that have been released lately have been released by small "indie" developers on very limited budgets.... and yes, they've all pretty much struggled for audiences. However, that is hardly strong evidence for there being no market for "sandbox" style games. Were "sandbox" the primary factor in thier struggle for market share, then we should expect "themepark" style games that produced by small indie developers on limited budgets to be doing substaintialy better then the corresponding "sandbox" releases.... I fail to see any evidence for that...and in fact, limited budget "themepark" releases seem to be struggling just as much if not more then thier "sandbox" bretheren. We should also expect that a game like "EVE" should not exist. If there is very limited market appeal for "sandbox" style games....then no "sandbox" style game should be able to draw a large audience...regardless of how long it took to establish that audience... yet EVE seem's to be able to do so.

My main arguement, is that the conventional wisdom that a "sandbox" style game has limited market appeal is based on very flimsy evidence. I would counter that it is titles that lack sufficient budget and experience to produce a robust and polished user experience that have limited market appeal....and that the style of the game ("sandbox" or "themepark") is actually a negligable factor in that equition.  I don't think we have any real idea of how a "sandbox" with a AAA budget and design team would fair upon launch (if anyone were actualy willing to take the risk to fund one) because we have next to no examples of anyone trying one.

I would also argue that the market for AAA "themepark's" is pretty saturated these days. We've seen a ton of those titles release in recent years...alot of them to lackluster returns. It'd be interesting (IMO) to see what would happen if someone did try to release a AAA "sandbox". It is a high risk...and does buck conventional wisdom.... but it's certainly not a market segment that is over-saturated with competition.

As a follow up to my previous post, I would like to note that, ironicaly enough, the one company ideally suited to attempt a AAA "sandbox" release would be Blizzard.

1) Of the companies currently in the MMO space, they are one of the few that should have enough existing capital that they can afford some risk taking.

2) It would be an excellent opportunity for them to diversfy thier audience. If they do produce a new title, they won't want one that will canablize much of thier existing customer base. It will do their bottom line absolutely no good to have a customer switch paying thier $15 from Warcraft to New Blizzard title.... what they really want is to capture people who aren't existing customers and aren't likely to be interested in Warcraft.

3) There is a huge amount of competition for the typical "themepark" MMO space right now....and that's a market they already dominate. Being the "first to market" to capture a new audience segment (if there is any depth to it) would be a huge win for this giant of company.

4) Say what you will about them...they certainly have experience making, running and marketing large MMO's.

breaking the nda /flex

THIS GAME IS UTTER GARBAGE ATM NEEDS AT LEAST ANOTHER YEAR DEV TIME

NOT GONNA BOTHER

GW2 FTW

And the perfect Background for a Sandbox MMO would be Mechwarrior, its Science Fiction, thus it has Space Travel, thus it has Planets, many of them, unexplored Space, 1000 Options for any kind of PvP, Sandbox, Themepark and no limitation to the size of your game.
You can have any sort of fight from individual personal fight with bare hands up to any weapon up to amrored vehicles up to any size of Battlemechs and even Spaceopera.

Go for it!

If Bioware and EA want subscribers, they should release there beast, as the updates are just not exciting me anymore, its like waiting for hours in a restaurant for some awesome meal, but by the time you get it, you've drank too much beer and eaten to many appetitsers that you no longer care for it!

Yet, Ultima Online, the first MMORPG ever released, based on MUDs, longest running MMORPG and still successful... Is still supported by the gaming community?

I'm sorry but your entire article is wrong.

I wanted to add, games fail because they are poorly developed not because of the Genre. /shrug

The Stupid Part is, we can't change the future of StarWars.. Where do we go when the Empire does kill all, but the few remaining jedi 990 years later? The on going feeling that empire will win the war in the end, makes you wanna lose hope..

It will be a hard choice to work out why both trying to play the ReBeLs..

Just remember, all sith kill each other off for power and control.. There will be new leaders and old foes from past events.. I will be this game and play it, but I'll be very suprised to see how well they think ahead after spending 45million to make a small mmo into a maybe 5 to 10 yr investment..

Originally posted by Morv

Yet, Ultima Online, the first MMORPG ever released, based on MUDs, longest running MMORPG and still successful... Is still supported by the gaming community?

I'm sorry but your entire article is wrong.

 

I wanted to add, games fail because they are poorly developed not because of the Genre. /shrug

Buzzz Your Wrong with UO being the oldest.. Meridian 59 is the most outstand and oldest MMO out there.. and it's still active..

http://www.meridian59.com/